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There is more good news in the area of public health. A couple of days ago I posted on the decline of human mortality rates in the tropics. Now the UN agency for HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, reports that HIV infection rates, especially of the mother-to-child variety, are on a downward trend.

New infections with H.I.V. have dropped by half in the past decade in 25 poor and middle-income countries, many of them in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The greatest success has been in preventing mothers from infecting their babies, but focusing testing and treatment on high-risk groups like gay men, prostitutes and drug addicts has also paid dividends, said Michel Sidibé, the executive director of the agency U.N.AIDS.

Adding that:

Some regions, like Southern Africa and the Caribbean, are doing particularly well, while others, like Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, are not. Globally, new infections are down 22 percent from 2001, when there were 3.2 million. Among newborns, they fell 40 percent, to 330,000 from 550,000.

The life expectancy of a Kenyan has increased to 64 years up from 55 two years ago, a report released on Sunday shows.

The data compiled by the University of Nairobi in partnership with 12 other universities worldwide notes that the life of Kenyans has improved substantially and they can expect to live longer.

The report, State Of The Tropics, further says that Zimbabwe is the only nation in the world that recorded a decline in life expectancy at 47 years.

Madagascar reported the largest improvement in life expectancy to 65.8 years, with large reductions in infant and adult mortality rates.

…. In regional terms, Zimbabwe has a low infant mortality rate, but a very high adult mortality rate (the highest in the world)

Overall, there has been massive improvement in life expectancy in the tropics since the fifties:

…. life expectancy in the tropics has increased by 22.8 years to 64.4 years between 1950 and 2010 and the gap between the life expectancy of women and men has widened in favour of women over the same period.

I guess this calls for an investigation of the real causes of the drop (if the data hold up) in mortality rates (especially infant mortality). Is it better healthcare, diet or just a natural secular trend? Or could it be better economic prospects (since the mid-1990s) that inspire greater investment in healthcare? Also, has the AIDS epidemic peaked in the tropics? Over to you, epidemiologists.

It is a bit odd that a country like Zimbabwe has a low infant mortality rate but a high adult mortality rate – why has the total collapse of state institutions disproportionately affected health provision to adults?

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Soldiers from Chad and Niger on Tuesday drove Boko Haram Islamist militants from a border town that was one of the insurgency's last footholds in northeastern Nigeria, Chad's government and army spokesmen said.

ADEN (Reuters) - Saudi troops clashed with Yemeni Houthi fighters on Tuesday in the heaviest exchange of cross-border fire since the start of a Saudi-led air offensive last week, while Yemen's foreign minister called for a rapid Arab intervention on the ground.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Three decades after seizing power in a military coup, Muhammadu Buhari became the first Nigerian to oust a president through the ballot box, putting him in charge of Africa's biggest economy and one of its most turbulent democracies.